


Par-Lay-Voo Fron-Say?

by JetGirl1832, tomatopudding



Series: The Hamilton Family Album [58]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Humor, Languages, School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 10:49:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12957609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JetGirl1832/pseuds/JetGirl1832, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatopudding/pseuds/tomatopudding
Summary: Jack has the brilliant idea to skirt around his high school language requirement. However, there is one problem he did not foresee.





	Par-Lay-Voo Fron-Say?

Jack's plan was foolproof, a way to get an easy A and cheat the high school system. Like all of his siblings, Jack had been trilingual almost as soon as he started talking, picking up not only English but also Spanish and French to the point where he was equally fluent in all three. Also like all of his older siblings, Jack had to take a two years of foreign language credit in high school. This was something that he was definitely not looking forward to. Hence the foolproof plan. 

It was quite simple, which was why it was so perfect. With his mother focused on getting back into the teaching game, and the fact that he was now in high school no one else had noticed the fact that he'd signed up for French I. All he had to do was pretend to be a beginner and put on an awful accent and wham, bam, thank you ma'am. Language credit done. 

 

So Jack was ready for his first day of classes, and he was going to rock at sucking at French. 

His teacher was one of those who insisted on speaking mostly in French from the beginning, despite the fact that nobody in the room knew a single word. Well, almost nobody. Jack worked to keep the same clueless expression on his face as the rest of his classmates. The hardest part was remembering to not laugh at the random jokes the teacher cracked in French. Part of his felt bad deceiving the teacher, he actually really liked her, but he was determined to get this language credit over with. 

 

And he kept it up for just over a week, between mispronouncing words in class and misspelling words on his assignments Jack knew he was doing alright.

 

However, Jack soon found out one of the problems with being multi-lingual: if you're not paying attention, when someone speaks to you in a language you know, then you tend to automatically switch to that language. 

Which was exactly what happened on the fateful day that he got caught.

“Jack?” His teacher called out to him.

 

"Oui?" Jack replied, only half paying attention. 

“Can you give a brief summary of last night’s reading?” his teacher asked.

 

"We read about a dog that ran in a field," answered Jack, "he was chasing a ball that a little boy threw over the fence. Which is kind of mean of the boy, if you ask me."

It was only when he saw his classmates staring at him that Jack realized both the teacher's question and his response had been in perfectly fluent French. 

"Ah," he said quietly to himself, "merde."

 

“Jack, meet me in the office after class,” Jack’s teacher sighed.

And that was how Jack got kicked out of French class. Well, not so much kicked out as asked to switch to Spanish. But of course he didn't tell the principal that he was fluent in that too. 

 

Jack was more careful this time when it came to keeping up the ruse, and so far it working out well.

 

He'd managed to make it a little more than half way through the semester, doing just well enough on homework and quizzes to keep his grade at an A, but still making a purposeful conjugation mistake here and there to keep it authentic. 

Jack was certain he was going to get away with this too, that is until parent teacher conferences rolled around.

It was partly his own fault. He would have figured out a way to hide what he was doing, but he lost track of time and completely forgot when the conferences were happening. That is, until Eliza knocked on his bedroom door. 

"You'll never guess what I found out at parent teacher conferences today," she said. 

Jack's fingers froze on his GameBoy. 

"Oh?" he asked faintly. 

 

His mother leaned against his opened door frame, “Imagine my surprise to find out my son is in Spanish 1,” she replied, “my son who, like the rest of his siblings, has been fluent since about age seven.”

 

Jack cleared his throat, "Imagine that."

"Indeed," agreed Eliza, "Care to explain?"

Jack placed his game in his lap, his face turning red with embarrassment. "I uhhh...." there was no way he was getting out of this, "I really just didn't want to learn a new language," he admitted.

"Jack..." Eliza sighed.

"You have to admit that it was a clever idea," Jack tried.

"That's one way of putting it," his mother countered, one eyebrow raised. 

"Sorry," Jack said, chagrined. 

"Well you aren't getting out of it now," Eliza replied, "and this time we'll know, I've already got a list of the other languages you can take."

Jack groaned, "But mom..."

“You know, German could be fun.” His mother shrugged, “Pick something, or I’ll pick one for you.”

Jack huffed a sigh, "Okay, fine."


End file.
